


softsheithweek collection

by narada-talis (sarensen)



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - The Walking Dead, Angst with a Happy Ending, Atlas POV, Canon-Typical Violence, Dancing, Fluff, Found Family, Implied Cannibalism, Implied Sexual Content, Introspection, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Krolia POV, M/M, Marriage Proposal, POV Outsider, Post-Season/Series 07, Prompt Fic, Season 8 does not exist, Weddings, collection, event fics, happy crying, implied suicidal ideation, kosmo is just a giant puppy, mention of walkers, softsheithweek 2019, vprp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-23
Packaged: 2019-11-21 09:30:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,530
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18140438
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sarensen/pseuds/narada-talis
Summary: A collection of short drabbles written for thesoftsheithweek event.Day 1 (Home): More than a place or a concept, their home becomes each other.Day 2 (Milestones): The Atlas presides over a wedding.Day 3 (AUs):Rated m, please heed the warnings!Shiro saves Keith from a fate worse than Walkers. (The Walking Dead AU)Day 4 (Family):  Shiro tells Keith the story of Urashima Taro.Day 5 (Objects): Shiro teaches Kosmo to bring Keith a very special gift.Day 6 (Day in the life): The Black Paladins spend a rare day off together.Day 7 (Free day): (#vprp) Krolia peeks through the door where Shiro and Keith are dancing.





	1. younger than the mountains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 1: Home_

In the traditional sense of the word, ‘home’ doesn’t really mean anything to either of them anymore.

Shiro has seen too much, done too much, and things have changed for him in an irreparable way.

In the long year following Kerberos, he couldn’t afford to believe in the concept of home because more than the fighting, more than the killing and the unique pain of victory after victory, thinking about home was what broke him.

Then came the war against Zarkon, and new galaxies and new species and a new way of life, and Voltron became home, after a fashion, because it was the only thing he had left. But it wasn’t Earth. It wasn’t warm, comfortable Sunday mornings and sweet coffee and the smell of rain on the ground. It was cold, and it was terrifying, and it was all he could allow himself to think about because thinking about home - his real home, on Earth - was the one thing that made him lose hope, when it should have been the thing that inspired it.

All his life he’d wanted to escape, to fly away to the stars and never look back. And then he did, and he lost everything, and on many nights the only thing he wanted was to go back.

One day, he got his wish. He returned to Earth with one arm and silver hair and as he stood there, looking out over the  smoldering ruins of the city he once called home, he realized he would never have a home again.

One day, not too long after that, he sat at Keith’s bedside and listened to him laugh at one of Lance’s jokes; watched him fiddle with the bandage wrapped around his head, saw the color slowly returning to his cheeks and it felt like everything Shiro had never dared dream about each night in the Galra fighting pits. And a slowly-blooming realization came over him like seeing the moon crescent over the stark dry peaks of the desert: Keith had always been his home.

Keith learned early on that it was dangerous to rely to concepts such as ‘home’, that could be taken from you. His dad was his home, until his dad went away and he had to go to a new home, and then another, and another, a series of unfamiliar faces and cold dinners and everything a growing boy should not have to go through.

And then he met Shiro, and Shiro became everything that fit into those empty spaces inside him, and despite his best intentions, despite every instinct telling him to run, he made Shiro his home. Everything Keith had been running from felt far away when he was with Shiro, as if he could be a new person, the person he’d always wanted to be instead of the little orphan boy with attitude problems everyone hated.

A year later Shiro went away, and with Shiro gone, there was nothing left on Earth for Keith anymore. Days passed, the sun rose and the world turned and all Keith felt was empty. He dropped out of school and became a shell in the desert, because it didn’t matter. Nothing did. Without Shiro, the word ‘home’ didn’t mean anything anymore.

Then came Voltron, and the Atlas, and Lotor and Haggar and Sendak and they lost Earth for while, and then they got it back, but none of that mattered more to Keith than the fact that he’d found Shiro.

And after everything was done, battles fought and wounds healed and families reunited, they finally found some quiet time to themselves, and more than a place or a concept, their ‘home’ became each other.

Now, they sit together on the Black Lion’s nose, watching the sunset from a cliff overlooking the sea of a newly-liberated planet. They don’t say anything - they don’t have to. Being together is enough. Every mission is dangerous. Every day they they go out into space might be the day they die together. But at least they’ll be together.

And sometimes Shiro still thinks they’ve both been on their own too long, that once you’ve learned to live without other people, you can never learn to live with them again.

Then Keith will tuck his hair behind his ear, or brush their hands together under the briefing room table, or pillow his head on his chest in bed and Shiro will think,  _what an empty existence without him._

In the distance, the first stars are just starting to dot the purple sky like silver flecks sprinkled on the horizon.

“Hey, Keith?” Shiro says, squeezing the smaller palm fitting snugly into his hand.

“Yeah?”

“Let’s go home.”


	2. re: infinity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 2: Milestones_

Here are things the Atlas knows:

The one called Keith likes the color red. It’s in his Paladin armor, in his uniform, in the casual clothes he wears around the Garrison on his day off. It’s in the long scar on his cheek that he sometimes touches when he thinks no one is looking. The Atlas sees. The Atlas is always looking at Keith.

Today, the one called Keith is wearing white.

The one called Shiro has been dreaming about this day. The Atlas visits his dreams sometimes, intrinsically connected to every part of Shiro as it is. The Atlas sees. He dreams of the one called Keith, and the dreams make him happy.

The one called Shiro reminds the Atlas of the stars, silver and shining bright in its mind. The Atlas loves the stars, but it loves the one called Shiro more. His happiness means everything.

Today, the one called Shiro is wearing white.

Here was once a great bridge; the Atlas has seen it in records of Earth’s history before the Galra invasion. Now, its bones rise like the skeleton of an enormous dead beast out of the water. It was once a connection between one place and another. Now all it connects is the memory of things, all grief and forgotten love and all the other incredible, enormous emotions humans are capable of.

Here, the last battle was fought. Here, the one called Voltron dealt the killing blow to the last Galra forces remaining on Earth, and the Atlas took the Galra ship between its hands and crushed it until no more than broken splinters of armor remained.

They chose this place not because it is a happy place, or a place of memory. They chose it because it is the place of their shared victory, where they consummated everything they fought so hard to become.

The Atlas knows this is the end of one life, the beginning of another. It doesn’t know much about the meaning of endings and beginnings - not yet - but the one called Shiro is so happy, it fills the Atlas to the brim with colors more beautiful than those of the furthest nebulae, and the Atlas doesn’t quite understand what that makes it feel, but it likes the feeling very much nonetheless.

The sky is very blue today. The Atlas’ atmospheric readings tell it there’s a storm coming, that soon the wind will pick up and the grey clouds will blow in and the rain will make deep muddy pools in the desert sand. But not now, not yet. Here, now, is a perfect day.

The Atlas stands guard over a small gathering of people. It knows some of them. Others are unfamiliar. They look small, like ants in the distance, gathered in neat little lines in toothpick chairs on the ground far below. The one called Voltron watches, quietly, from the Atlas’ right. The Atlas doesn’t know what Voltron is thinking. But the light in his eyes is slightly gentler than usual, and if it were possible for Voltron to smile, the Atlas thinks he would be doing that right now.

On the platform down there, words are being exchanged, promises of togetherness and forever and all the good things in the world. The Atlas doesn’t understand the importance of words because it doesn’t need them. It speaks in ideas and images and colors, and the one called Shiro understands, and that’s how they work. For humans, though, words are important.

The one called Keith has a ring made of silver, which he puts onto Shiro’s finger. He is crying. The Atlas has never seen him cry. He’s speaking in front of the crowd, but his words are only for Shiro. He’s looking at him as if nothing else exists in the world. He will always belong to Shiro.

The one called Shiro has a ring made of gold, which glints when he slips it onto Keith’s finger in return. He is smiling. He smiles often around Keith. The Atlas listens to his words, but more than that it sees his thoughts, sees how the one called Keith overlays every part of how the Atlas sees Shiro like fine gold dust. Shiro will always belong to him.

They love each other. The Atlas doesn’t quite understand how this emotion works between them, not yet, but it understands the enormity of the space it takes up inside the one called Shiro, understands that he couldn’t be who he is without Keith, that he wouldn’t want to be. It thinks the one called Keith must feel the same. This it understands: the Atlas couldn’t be who it is without Shiro.

The one called Keith and the one called Shiro kiss, and all the humans clap their hands, and several are crying, but all of them are smiling.

The Atlas knows this: today is a good day. And it is the start of many more good days to come.


	3. when the dead come knocking

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 3: AUs_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **rated m / walking dead au, canon-typical violence, mention of walkers, implied cannibalism, implied suicidal ideation, angst with a happy ending**

You never really stop being afraid of the Walkers. You get used to them, to the constant adrenaline of never knowing when they’ll be on top of you. You even get numb to killing what used to be human, eventually. But you never stop being afraid.

What no one tells you about the apocalypse is that Walkers aren’t the only thing you need to be afraid of. It’s the live ones that are truly terrifying; humans who’ve lost their humanity. Life more dangerous than death. Those are the ones you need to watch out for.

Keith is just a kid when it happens. He’s been on his own since he was seven, since the fire, just him and the eternal summer heat and the cicadas. The only mission is to survive, to keep alive. Don’t die. He’s managed, so far…

Until today.

His lungs are burning and he’s too tired to stand anymore. His feet ache from running, through the forest, and under bridges, and between ruined buildings and crumbled alleyways and emptied-out apartment blocks. He’s been running for so long, but he can hear them just behind him, always, relentless, chasing him through the night and into the dawn, faster than Walkers. Human-fast.

He can’t go on anymore.

He realizes it when he runs himself into a dead end, a blockade of pikes and corrugated iron on one end, the hunters on the other, cornering him. Trapped. It’s almost a relief. Finally, under the first light of the sun, he can rest. If he just stops, just gives up, it will all be over.

At the end of the line, he sags to his knees and closes his eyes. He’s gotten tired of having to fight all the time, anyway.

They’re close now, close enough to hear their heavy boots, male voices dripping with derision, “Yeah, kid, that’s it, no more runnin’,” and “We got you now,” and “Gonna make a tasty meal out of you.” A club thuds into the meat of a dirty palm. Even the cicadas have gone quiet.

Keith looks down at the gun shaking in his hand, and swallows dryly. An empty gesture; he only has one bullet left. He used too many and killed too few, and now he’s paying for it.

He can’t anymore. He’s only fifteen, but he’s so, so tired. And really, that’s kind of a blessing - he’s too exhausted to feel scared anymore, just kind of numb all over, resigned and accepting. They’ve been chasing him long enough for all his adrenaline to run out, predators surrounding prey too weak to fight. Just the way they like it.

Thick fingers paw at the hem of his shirt. He twitches, but doesn’t try to get away. Someone says, “Bit skinny… but meat is meat,” and “Maybe we can have a little fun with him first before we grill him up.”

Keith keeps squeezing his eyes shut, finger trembling on the trigger. Just one bullet left.

He lifts the gun to his mouth.

The sound of the shot is deafening and close and intense, a private explosion, louder than anything he’s ever heard.

Keith’s eyes fly open. He lowers the gun.

Not his shot.

His heart hammers in his chest as he slowly looks around.

The man to the left of him drops like a heavy sack of rocks, red pooling into the cracks on the tarmac below his head. From behind Keith, more shots ring out, echoing off the walls of abandoned buildings and the broken glass of torched storefronts. There is confusion, yelling, footsteps pounding on the tar around him and the sound of weapons being drawn. More shots, more bodies hitting the ground, and then Keith sees him.

He’ll never forget this moment. Years and years from now, people will ask him how they met, and he’ll recall this day with a startling clarity borne from renewed adrenaline and surging fear and above all, more intense than any emotion he’s felt until this moment: hope.

The man makes short work of the remaining hunters. He’s good at what he does. He’s huge, and fights like a soldier, and the hunters go down under his gun and his sword, and some have their necks snapped, and others have their heads caved in by a heavy piece of broken pavement lying nearby.

The shock of white hair at his fringe and the scar over the bridge of his nose etch themselves into Keith’s memory forever, and many years later, he’ll run his fingers through that fringe and tell him it’s the first thing he remembers about him.

In reality, it takes only a few moments. For Keith, it feels like an eternity before he’s the only one left upright, still slumped on his knees and shaking.

The man comes up to him, blood splattered in a rorschach pattern over his collar. Keith sees him in stop-frame flashes through the shock and receding adrenaline - broad chest stretching the buttons of his shirt, narrow waist, forearms corded with muscle, gentle eyes.

The man reaches out, but stops short of touching Keith. “Hey,” he says, and his voice is infinitely softer than the hard edges of the new world, “You okay?”

Keith doesn’t realize what he’s doing until he has his arms around the man’s waist, and by then he can’t stop himself. He clings to his hips as if his life depended on it, burrowing into the only place he’s felt safe since he was a child. He stares in front of him, not caring what the man thinks of him, just so grateful that he’s there.

The man smoothes his hair down, soothingly, then pulls away and holds out a hand to him.

Keith sniffs, and realizes he’s been crying. He looks at the hand, then up to the man it belongs to.

“My name is Shiro,” the man says, “Wanna get out of here?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve written this to be part of a larger Walking Dead AU longfic I am working on, titled “What we became”. The first part should be posted soon. If you’re interested in checking it out, feel free to follow my [tumblr](https://narada-talis.tumblr.com/) for updates.


	4. sometimes a family is a space wolf, his desert orphan, and their hot space daddy and that’s ok

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 4: Family_

It’s late one Wednesday at the Garrison. It’s a quiet kind of night, clear skies and stars for miles, with only the crickets and owls outside for company, a kind of melancholy night that brings to mind old faces and past losses, and the ever-present heaviness of grief just underneath the surface of everyone who’s ever lost someone. These days, everyone has lost someone. Many have lost everyone.

Keith rests in the cradle of Shiro’s arms. Shiro is big, and warm, and envelopes him like he was made specifically for this purpose, and Keith doesn’t think he’s ever been more comfortable in his life. The common room is quiet, now. Everyone’s gone to bed, tired and heartsick from long days of excavating the ruins of what were once a nation’s hopes and dreams. But not Keith. Not Shiro. Always, they find hope in each other, inspiration when everything else has failed, and the will to go on, if only to see that the other does, too.

Sendak’s forces may be gone, but the road to recovery is a long one. They’ll rebuild, but it will take time, and perhaps ask more of them than they have left to give.

For now, Keith is alone with Shiro, and it’s the moments like these - the quiet ones, the ones where the rest of the world seems to disappear and nothing else seems to matter except just being together - that he’s come to live for these days. More so than rebuilding what’s left of Earth. More so than leading Voltron. 

They’ve both been quiet for a while, a comfortable and warm kind of silence in which Keith suspects they’ve both been thinking about the same thing: marveling at the fact that, after everything, they  _can_  just… be together like this. Keith doesn’t think it will ever get old.

Beneath them, the space wolf lolls on the floor, sniffling quietly in his sleep. Every now and then his tail will thump the floor to the rhythm of his dreams, and he’ll wake suddenly and prick his ears, and then go back to sleep again.

“Do you remember that story I told you back when we first met?” Shiro murmurs, his voice soft and honey-thick, “About the boy and the turtle?”

Keith closes his eyes, thinking back. “The… boy who opened the box of years?”

“Something like that,” Shiro says, the smile plain in his voice. “He rescued a turtle, and in return, the turtle took him to a magical castle under the sea. The boy met a princess, and they stayed together for a few days. Then he started remembering his family, and asked the princess if he could go home. She gave him a mysterious box as a parting gift, and told him he was never to open it.”

“The box of years,” Keith interjects.

“Yes,” Shiro nods, “But he didn’t know that. Anyway, when he got back to his village, everything was different. He didn’t understand what was going on. His parents were gone, his house… Eventually, he learned that three hundred years had passed since he left. Wracked with grief, he opened the box, and all of the missing years streamed out, like a cloud of mist, and returned to the boy, and he grew into an old man with silver hair, bent and frail... And he couldn’t go back to the magical castle, either.”

Shiro trails off, a distant look in his eyes. He seems… not sad. But solemn, as if a great weight has settled over his shoulders. He looks like that too often. It’s always Shiro who ends up carrying the burdens of their calling.

Keith shifts in his arms, turning to look up at him. The similarity of the story to their own isn’t lost on him. Missing years, a princess, a stay at a magical castle…

“What made you remember that?” he asks.

Shiro blinks his eyes slowly, as if coming back to himself, or shaking off the haunting of a memory. “I… don’t know. I was just thinking about the day we got back to Earth.”

Keith frowns slightly, thinking back. “We ran from Sendak’s sentries, met the MFEs… when we got back to the Garrison everyone’s families were waiting.” He blinks in somber realization. “Oh.”

Shiro nods. “My grandfather told me that story, back when I first went to live with him. I think I was about… eight or nine.”

Keith turns around so his back can rest on Shiro’s chest again, and threads the fingers of his hand through Shiro’s Altean one.

“I didn’t have anyone to come back to,” Shiro continues softly, and although Keith knew it was coming, it still hurts, like a knife cutting thin slices from his lungs. As if sensing his distress, the space wolf sits up, resting his chin on Shiro’s large thigh.

Shiro scratches his head absently, his voice soft and musing, but underlaid with something bigger, something quieter: “After my parents passed away, he was all I had. And when he died… It felt like a little bit of me died too. I couldn’t really remember enough about mom and dad, but with him…”

Keith squeezes his hand, then gets up, sliding one leg up so he can straddle Shiro’s lap. He takes Shiro’s face between his hands - that beloved face, the face he’s traced with his eyes enough times to memorize every small imperfection, like the way his cheek dimples when he smiles and the number of lines in his brow when he frowns - and meets his eyes, staring right into them because he isn’t good with words, never was, but Shiro has this thing where he can look at Keith and somehow understand what he means anyway.

He takes a deep breath, and licks his dry lips, and swallows, trying to put the words in the right order so they make sense. Shiro waits.

Keith says, “Shiro. When my dad died… I was so lost. It felt like nothin’ in the world would ever be okay again. And then I met you and it was like… like I could breathe again, you know? And most of the time I can’t even stand how much I love you. It’s too much, too big to… to even understand. It feels like it’s going to make me explode and I have no idea how to handle that.”

“Keith, I--”

“Wait,” Keith talks over him, “Let me finish. I can’t imagine a universe without you. You’re my everything. And I need you to know that… that you will always have me to come back to. Okay? Always. Me and space wolf and Krolia, and the other Paladins and Coran and Sam and Matt. We’re all your family now.”

Shiro is staring up at him, and Keith hasn’t ever seen him cry before, despite all the horrible things he’s had to endure, but now, his eyes are glistening, and he’s swallowing heavily and his jaw is working.

And then they’re kissing, and it’s a happy kiss; it tastes like everything Keith’s ever wanted and feels like the home he never had. And somewhere below space wolf is licking Shiro’s hand as if to say,  _mine now_ , and Keith is filled with a sense of rightness, of belonging, and he thinks, this is what a family is supposed to feel like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Urashima Taro is a Japanese folk tale. You can read an English version of the story [here](https://etc.usf.edu/lit2go/72/japanese-fairy-tales/4881/the-story-of-urashima-taro-the-fisher-lad/).


	5. put that thing back where it came from or so help me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 5 - Objects_

“Ko– Kosmo, no, drop it! Kosmo! Put that down!”

Keith’s eyes fly open. His biological alarm clock tells him it can’t be oh seven hundred yet, which, for his only off day this quintant, is exactly three hours too early for him to be awake. He turns his head to the right. Shiro’s side of the bed is empty, the sheets rumpled and tossed aside.

“Oh come on!” It’s the same voice, coming from the other room.

Keith groans and sits up groggily, swinging his legs to the ground and rubbing his eyes with his palms before steeling himself to get up.

Shiro is in the living room, currently engaged in a tug of war with the space wolf. Keith doesn’t know what they’re fighting over. He isn’t sure he wants to know.

“What… What’re you doing?”

Shiro whips around to face Keith. “Uh.” he says, intelligently, hand frozen mid-grab, “Keith. Hello. I’m. I’m just trying to see if I can get him to, y’know, do some simple tricks.”

Keith narrows his eyes.

Shiro starts waving his hands. “Really, I was just wanting to spend some time with him. Get to know him, you know…” He gives Keith his best toothy grin.

He’s lying about something. Keith knows he’s lying. Shiro knows Keith knows he’s lying.

They engage in a short Mexican standoff - Keith looks at the space wolf, who is looking at Shiro, who is still smiling (though slightly strained) at Keith.

Finally, Keith relents. It’s too early in the morning. He’s going to need a lot more coffee if he’s going to deal with… whatever this is. “Riiiight,” he says, drawing the word out, and leaves Shiro and the space wolf to their own devices.

This goes on for the next few days. Keith wakes to the sound of yelling and/or crashing, and comes into their small living room to find Shiro and the space wolf engaged in some sort of acrobatically improbable scenario. He just can’t figure out what they’re  _doing_.

One day, he’s having lunch in the Garrison mess hall with Lance when the now familiar shout of “Put that thing down or so help me!” resounds through the room, followed shortly by the space wolf, aforementioned unidentified object lodged firmly in his jaw. In short succession, Shiro’s Altean arm, and then the man himself, come flying through the hall after him, leaving in their wake twenty pairs of staring eyes and a silence deeper than that of deep space.

When Keith glances at Lance, he finds him smiling. He  _knows_ something. Keith’s suspected for a few days now. He’s seen the other Paladins conferring quietly with Shiro, and once caught Pidge watching dog training videos on her datapad.

So he’s pretty sure Shiro’s trying to teach Kosmo something. But what? And why?

He corners Lance outside, waiting for just the right moment before slamming his palm into the wall next to his head. “Out with it. What’s going on with Shiro and Space Wolf?”

“What?” Lance hedges, feigning innocence, “Nothing’s goin’ on with them. I mean, how would I know if something’s–”

“Lance!”

Lance sighs, dramatically. “Alright. Fine. Shiro’s been training Kosmo to fetch his slippers.”

“His… slippers…”

This is ridiculous, because Keith has never seen Shiro wear slippers in his life.

He fixes Lance with a glare.

Lance doesn’t relent, which Keith gives him some points for. And he still has three other paladins to interrogate. One way or another, he’s going to get to the bottom of this.

It doesn’t go according to plan.

He doesn’t get much better results from Allura or Hunk, who alternately dodge his questions and try to distract him by stuffing a handful of cookies into his mouth. And when he confronts Pidge about it after yet another round of watching Shiro running after the space wolf, she panics for less than a second before yelling, “Are you not entertained?!” and practically slamming her door in his face.

He is not entertained. In fact, he’s gotten pretty tired of all this sneaking around.

Fine. If Shiro wants to lie about whatever it is he’s doing with the space wolf, let him. Keith decides he has better things to do, and stops asking.

A few days later, he’s just landed from a mission with the Blades, still in his sweaty Blade armor and tired and sore from the battle they’d engaged in. The sun is just setting, tinting everything orange-pink, and the cicadas have quieted down, making way for the crickets and frogs and other nocturnal desert wildlife.

He lets the others go ahead, hanging back to disengage his mask and drop his hood down around his shoulders. He always takes a few moments to himself after missions, to gather himself and get rid of the worst left-over tension and adrenaline. Leaning back against their shuttle and wiping his forehead on the back of one arm, he pauses. From beside him comes the telltale pop and flash of teleportation. He smiles, thinking the space wolf has come to welcome him home.

But when he turns, it’s to find the wolf neatly perched with his tail wrapped around his feet and a small box between his teeth. Keith blinks at him. “Whatcha got there?”

“Okay, Kosmo.” - it’s Shiro, appearing out of the shadows behind the space wolf - “Just like we practiced.”

Keith watches in fascination as the wolf gets up and pads over to him, looking up to meet his eyes before sinking down on his forelegs into a canine bow. He nudges Keith’s foot with his nose, then gets up, straightening one paw out to him. Keith is too dumbstruck to do anything but take it, slowly, and stares openmouthed as the wolf carefully delivers the box into Keith’s hand.

It’s a cube roughly the size of his palm, and covered in velvet. His heart leaps, and he looks up at Shiro in bewilderment.

“Open it,” Shiro prompts gently, and his voice is soft, but he looks nervous.

Keith clips open the box. It’s a gold ring. It’s the rest of their lives. It’s the future Keith never dared dream he’d have.

He looks up at Shiro, and he doesn’t know when, but tears have started streaming down his face. Shiro looks crestfallen, panicked, and no - no, that isn’t what Keith intended at all. He rushes over and falls into him, and he’s arms are aching from the mission but he doesn’t care - nothing else matters in this moment except the fact that Shiro wants him to be his, forever.

“Hey,” Shiro soothes, rubbing his back, “You’re okay. You’re good.”

Keith sniffs, throat aching with how much he wants to tell Shiro how long he’s waited for this moment, how badly he’s wanted it.

In a few minutes, Shiro pulls away, kissing the wetness from his cheeks and tugging on his hair playfully.

“I can’t believe you trained Space Wolf,” Keith tells him.

“Well, I had a lot of help,” Shiro replies, always the first to defer credit, “Pidge actually found a series of videos by–”

“No,” Keith interrupts, “I mean… you coulda just asked him to do it.”

Shiro blinks, then looks at the space wolf, then opens his mouth to say something, then shuts it again, thinking better of it. Eventually, he just shakes his head, pulling Keith back in for another hug. “So… how about it? Wanna get married? Mr. Shirogane?”

Keith laughs, and nods furiously, and at their feet the space wolf barks excitedly and licks their hands.


	6. until tomorrow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 6: A Day In The Life Of Sheith_

Days like this are rare. Keith wakes to a syrup-thick morning, a beam of golden sunlight heating a diagonal square over his hip through the curtains. Outside the window is birdsong and a cool desert breeze and the distant roar of jet engines blazing through the sky. Inside is soft blankets and twisted sheets and the affectionate curl of metal fingers in his hair. Shiro’s breath is warm against his cheek, soft. **  
**

The first thought Keith has is that he wishes he could bottle this moment, frame it or tack it to the wall of his life like a polaroid along with all his other best moments.

He feels the moment Shiro wakes up. The heavy, dead weight on Keith’s chest becomes kinetic; one thigh shifts between his legs and Shiro’s head burrows into his neck. Keith tilts his chin slightly for lazy, warm lips, the brush of a tongue under his ear, the tickle of silver hair against his cheek. Metal fingers follow the dip of his collarbone, resting on his throat.

He fills his arms with Shiro, kissing his hair and then his face, and then his lips. They become the rustle of sheets, soft exhales, the sound of each other’s names, reverently as though no other words would ever matter to them again. Keith traces the deep, pocked scars on Shiro’s shoulder, first with his fingers and then with his lips, and then he sinks lower and Shiro’s voice becomes honey-thick and gasping.

The curtains billow gently in the breeze, silver with the backing sun. Dust-motes hang suspended in the shifting beams of light, disturbed only by the roll of Keith’s spine, corded muscle shifting in his back.

They spend hours wrapped up in each other, nowhere else to be, and the universe still needs saving but it can wait for them. They can have this. They deserve one day.

When they get hungry Shiro makes a token effort at dressing and fetches them toast and fruit and coffee from the Garrison mess, and they push the ruined sheets on the floor and sit cross-legged on the bed and watch the contrails streaking over the blue, blue sky. Keith’s hair sticks up on one side and he’s still sleep-rumpled and warm. Shiro takes off everything except his underwear, because it’s the desert, and he doesn’t mind Keith seeing his scars.

They laugh a lot. They talk. They do other things. And the day drips like molasses, each slow and perfect moment a lifetime filled with each other. When the light tints the edges of the world orange-pink, they change the sheets in silence and sit together by the window watching purple twilight until it turns blue, and then black.

The twitter of birdsong rises to a chorus, then slowly goes quiet. It’s replaced by crickets and frogs and the far-off distant howl of coyotes. The sounds of the Garrison die out as shifts change and the last bell sounds for lights-out. Keith is melted into the warmth of Shiro’s chest, safe in the bracket of his arms. They haven’t spoken for a while, the responsibility of tomorrow looming over them again like the shadow of a warship in low orbit.

But for a day, this one day, they had their own world, and even if they never have a day like this again, it will have been enough.


	7. got this feelin'

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Day 7: Free Day_

The Galra, on average, sleep much less than humans do. A matter of biology perhaps, or years of instinctual wakefulness; an alertness brought on by war, of never knowing when the enemy will strike, of having to be ready at a moment’s notice to fight for your very life. **  
**

Krolia is, therefore, still awake long past the bell for night shift, reading an intel report on Sendak’s remaining forces on Earth when the noise starts. She lowers her data pad, ears twitching. It’s a muffled kind of thumping, rhythmic in nature. After a second, it goes quiet. Then starts again. She frowns, sitting up and tilting her head slightly to listen. It goes quiet, starts up again.

Once is an accident. Twice is a coincidence. Three times is an enemy action.

Bombs. An infiltration, sabotage, or worse. She’s on her feet with her weapon drawn before she quite knows what she’s doing - a nagging feeling at the back of her head is telling her that this is not what that is. However. She takes a few slow steps to the door, listening intently, blade still at the ready (just in case).

It’s… music. Or, what counts as music on this planet, anyway. Muffled, soft bass overlaid by what sounds like the keening of a distressed kit. She sheaths the blade with a disgruntled sigh. She’ll never understand Earth music. On the bed, her data pad beeps with a new notification from Keith.  
  


**kth**  [@002_kth](https://twitter.com/002_kth)  
  I’M BEING DRAGGED TOD ANC

A small smile. Her son is too cute. He’s changed since he and Shiro got together. He’s happier. More like the Keith she remembers from before she had to leave him. He was just a baby then, but when he wasn’t smiling, he was laughing and he had the kindest eyes - that much hasn’t changed, though they’ve become harder, now, edged with steel. **  
**

She keys open her door and pads down the hallway to where the beat is thumping through the door to Keith’s and Shiro’s quarters.

The small window at the top of the door is high enough for humans not to be able to glance inside casually. Not so for the Galra. For Krolia, the window is exactly the right height to peek through.

Shiro currently has his arms around her son’s waist. Keith’s feet dangle an inch off the floor, and he’s clawing at Shiro’s arms as though he’s trying to get away, but not hard enough to actually make a difference. He has no choice but to sway around with Shiro in a slow circle, laughing helplessly.

Krolia has never seen Shiro like this, guard down, expression open and carefree. She’s seen it in Keith’s visions of the past, before the mission to Kerberos. But never in person. He smiles a lot, even laughs with the rest of the Paladins and makes what she understands to be terrible jokes. But there’s always a wall there, something keeping everyone at arm’s length. She knows this wall well. It’s built from the wreckage of his past, all of the ruin and hurt piled up around him to protect him.

But it doesn’t exist around Keith.

The music carries on thumping away, but the two of them slow, staring into each other’s eyes. Shiro pulls her son close and the way they look at each other… the way Keith looks in that moment… If she had to take on all of Sendak’s forces by herself, she would tear them apart with her bare hands to protect it.

She looks away when they kiss. Shiro is still holding Keith above the ground, and she focuses on where his hands are digging trenches in Shiro’s shirt, on the slight tilt of Shiro’s legs as he shifts their weight. The way they kiss is too soft to have any right to exist in this world, like the rest of the universe has disappeared around them. They deserve a gentler place, somewhere without a war trying to tear them apart. If she had to die to give them that world, she would do it in a second.

The music has stopped, but they don’t seem to notice. Shiro lowers Keith slowly back to the ground, tucking a long strand of black behind his ear.

Keith looks down, resting his hand on Shiro’s chest. His voice is soft, but travels through the cracks around the doorway. “I never thought…”

“Sunshine?” Shiro prompts gently.

“I never thought I could be this happy,” Keith completes, and Krolia’s heart aches with the rawness of it.

Shiro takes him into his arms, hugging him as if he could make them melt together. “I know. I never thought I could have this either.”

“You could always have me,” Keith says, voice sand-rough and deep, “Even back before you knew you wanted it.”

Shiro doesn’t seem to know quite how to respond, so he just kisses him again instead.

Krolia’s heart is so full it feels like it’s going to burst. It’s highly un-Galra-like, of course, but she doesn’t even care. Humanity has always brought out the best parts in her, and now humanity is the best part of her son. She’s proud.

Deciding it best to give them their privacy, she heads back to her room, shutting the door and leaning back against it with a private smile to herself.

Then she picks up her datapad to reply:  
  


**Krolia**  [@Krolia9](https://twitter.com/Krolia9)  
 _replying to_  [@002_kth](https://twitter.com/002_kth)  
  Cute

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/solooutomg) and [tumblr](https://narada-talis.tumblr.com/)~


End file.
